Hong Kong's democracy and identity on the line in protest call

Hong Kong: The totality of one-party rule in China means most senior Communist Party officials can probably expect to go through entire careers without encountering serious political dissent firsthand.

But when Li Fei, the deputy secretary-general of China's top legislative body, arrived in Hong Kong this week, he collided with a political crisis that extends beyond a mere fight for democracy. The protest movement Occupy Central have threatened to unleash "wave after wave" of civil disobedience demonstrations, in what they say is a last-ditch effort to cling on to their city's identity, the cultural fabric that sets them apart from the rest of China.

A protester stands beside a sign that translates as "disobedience" during a rally organised by Occupy Central with Love and Peace. Photo: Bloomberg

"We're prepared to sacrifice anything, including our careers, because I really believe Hong Kong is in a very critical juncture of our history," says university professor Chan Kin-man, a co-founder of "Occupy Central with Love and Peace".

Delivering an address on Monday explaining Beijing's decision to reject the public nomination of candidates for the city's next chief executive election, Mr Li was forced to watch as heckling pro-democracy Hong Kong legislators in the room derided him as "shameful". Demonstrators outside clashed with police; a small number were pepper-sprayed and arrested.

Pro-democracy activists clash with police outside the hotel where top Communist Party official Li Fei was staying in Hong Kong on September 1. Photo: Reuters

The previous night, hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside his hotel until the early hours of the morning, jeering every passing vehicle in the hope that Mr Li was being ferried in one of them.

"Our worry is not just this struggle for a genuinely democratic electoral system," long-time democracy advocate and academic Joseph Cheng says. "There is a distinct danger that we may be reduced to just another big city in China."

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Under a deal brokered with the British ahead of its handover in 1997, China agreed not to interfere for half a century with Hong Kong's freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and other political rights not permitted on the mainland.

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The thinking was that as mainland China continued to modernise and internationalise, its leaders would eventually be more politically open, and the complete reintegration of Hong Kong in 2047 would be a less terrifying thought than in 1997, when many Hong Kongers migrated to other countries.

A replica of the "Goddess of Democracy" statue, made famous by the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, on the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong this week. Photo: AFP

For the first time, China has granted Hong Kong a direct vote to elect its chief executive in 2017. But under a rigid framework handed down on Sunday, candidates will be effectively limited to those vetted by Beijing, and approved by majority in a 1200-strong nomination committee. The decision outraged democracy advocates in Hong Kong who have called for universal suffrage to match international standards, rather than what leading democracy studies scholar Larry Diamond describes as an "Iranian-style rigged system".

"This is a sad day for Hong Kong, and for democracy," Diamond, the senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, told the South China Morning Post. "This seems to be about the worst outcome imaginable. No progress toward democracy, not even a timetable toward democracy, and frankly, not even an effort to gesture toward democracy."

In stark contrast with the mainland, media coverage in Hong Kong of Beijing's decision to reject public nominations for the city's next chief executive elections in 2017 has been polarised. While the pro-Beijing Oriental Daily splashed with the headline "Political Reform Framework Clinched" on its front page, the Next Media Group's Apple Daily, owned by fierce Communist Party critic Jimmy Lai, described it as a "betrayal of Hong Kong".

Deflating: Benny Tai has been accused of underselling the protest movement. Photo: AFP

It was typically strident and at times poignant coverage from local journalists who are finding their room to report the news increasingly under pressure, and are still reeling from the near-fatal Triad-style attack on former Ming Pao editor Kevin Lau.

Lau, whose paper had run a series of investigative pieces critical of the Communist Party, was stalked by two men on a motorcycle and savagely attacked with a meat cleaver while having breakfast.

Thousands of journalists took to the streets in protest dressed in black, chanting "they can't kill us all".

Also intensifying is the pressure on Next Media's Lai, who is best known in the West for founding the clothing brand Giordano and his Taiwanese arm's often zany animated video takes on current affairs, but is a major supporter of Hong Kong's democracy push.

In what TheNew York Times neatly described as the "journalistic equivalent of putting a horse's head in your rival's bed", the Oriental Daily last month published a full-page fake obituary marking the "death" of Lai from both AIDS and cancer. He has since been probed by anti-corruption officers investigating donations he has made to pro-democracy politicians.

Edward Chin, a hedge fund manager and supporter of Occupy Central, had his column with the Hong Kong Economic Journal abruptly terminated, while businessman Tony Tsoi has blamed political pressure for the closure of his House Newswebsite.

The big machine

Dr Cheng, a university professor and long-time pro-democracy advocate, has also been in the line of fire.

Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po ran a series of front-page articles over three days "exposing" his possession of an Australian passport – one cartoon depicted him with a bounding kangaroo on his T-shirt – and alleging he had been involved in academic fraud and plagiarism.

"I'm trying to promote solidarity within the pro-democracy movement, so the pro-Beijing media want to discredit me," the mild-mannered Cheng told Fairfax Media from his office at City University, his desk an island surrounded by tall piles of papers and books. "Their idea is that you hold an Australian passport, you're Australian – so shut up."

Cheng, 65, has been a prominent advocate for democracy since returning to Hong Kong in the late 1970s, after obtaining his PhD in international relations at Flinders University, where his wife also studied, in 1976. He became an Australian citizen in 1986.

Most recently, as the convener for the Alliance for True Democracy, he had sought to galvanise the often fractured camps of pro-democracy opposition politicians to help aid their call for public nominations and present an alternative to Occupy Central's civil disobedience campaign - one that could conceivably negotiate with the Chinese central government.

But Dr Cheng says Beijing's framework, which ensures it will be able to effectively pre-screen candidates for Hong Kong's chief executive election, has killed prospects of any further dialogue. He too will join Occupy Central in a private capacity.

Dr Cheng plans to retire next year and step back from activism. Though he says his age is the main factor in his decision, he admits the constant political pressure has also taken its toll. He says his email account has been hacked and that he and his wife are frequently followed.

"We didn't expect that, things have changed very quickly in the past few months," he says. "It's a kind of psychological pressure."

"There are so many dirty tricks … how can we ordinary people fight against this big machinery?"

People power in doubt

The apparent finality of Beijing's framework appeared to be genuinely crushing for the band of moderate, middle-aged intellectuals leading the Occupy movement, who had hoped the threat of sustained popular civil disobedience would prompt the central government to leave the door slightly ajar for dialogue.

After all, plans to change Hong Kong's security laws were shelved after hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets to demonstrate in 2003, widely attributed to a reawakening of a previously politically apathetic economic hub.

But a decade on, with President Xi Jinping increasingly cultivating an image as a strongman leader with the confidence to assert himself both on domestic and foreign policy, Beijing was always unlikely to give ground, especially not with Taiwan and Macau both watching closely.

Hong Kong's restoration to Chinese rule, after a century and a half of British colonial rule, was a hugely symbolic moment for Chinese national identity, an end to a period of invasion and humiliation where its land was "cut up like a melon" by foreign powers.

Already, there are murmurs that Occupy had lost momentum before it even started its first mass sit-in, not least because of the deflated statements made by the most high-profile of the Occupy leaders, Benny Tai.

"Up to this point, we failed. What we planned is that we use the threat of the action to create tension," he said.

Beijing's strong stance meant "the number of people joining us will not be as big as we expected, because of the very pragmatic thinking of Hong Kong people", said Mr Tai, who has previously confidently asserted that more than 10,000 protesters could be mobilised to cripple Hong Kong's financial centre.

The regrouping Occupy Central movement say they will definitely go ahead with their sit-in – which could begin within days – but student groups have also begun to bridge the gap, with planning for a mass student strike gathering momentum.

"More and more young people are willing to use radical means to fight for their rights," Professor Chan says. "We feel that this is the last chance for middle-aged people like me who are willing to use non-violent means to fight for our cause.